TechTalk Blog

Data Backup is the New Insurance Policy

by
Megan Wittenberger
| May 16, 2014

According to Forbes, insurance agencies and brokerages are among the most profitable small businesses in the U.S. How profitable would these small insurance agencies be, though, if they permanently lost all their client data?

Recently a Carbonite customer in the insurance business told us her fears about data backup.

“It just felt like there was always risk, I'd go to reformat someone's machine, and I braced myself for them to tell me they hadn't backed up their stuff in a while,” recalls Sandy Black of Lesron Insurance.

At the time, Sandy’s agency used tape for its backup solution. It was cumbersome and didn’t save data in a format that could be recovered easily. When backups started taking longer than usual, Black really began to worry. If data got corrupted, the office would have to find paper-based documents and re-scan them into electronic format…that is if they still had the files in their mostly paperless office.

Whether it’s an insurance agency or a retail business, a business’ most important asset is its data. Without it, businesses can't keep track of inventory, invoice customers, run payroll or ensure that their goals are being met. Considering the importance of data, backing it up to an off-site location must be a priority.

However, a recent Carbonite survey revealed that many businesses fail to do back up their data on a consistent, daily basis.

When 500 IT professionals from SMBs were asked, “When was the last time you backed up all of the documents and files for your business to a separate location?” only about one-third (32 percent) said they backed up that day. Nearly half (46 percent) said they backed up all their documents and files within the past week, and 15 percent said they performed a backup within the past month. One percent said they hadn’t backed up to another location in over three years.

Although the respondents admitted they don’t back up files as often as they could, they do believe their colleagues understand the importance of backing up. When asked, “How much or how little do you trust employees at your company to regularly back up their data files?” an impressive 86 percent said they trust them. Among these, 33 percent trusted employees “completely.” Of the remaining 14 percent, only a small number (four percent) said they “did not trust them at all.”

Sandy points out using automatic online data backup is easy. What’s more, it provides the security an SMB needs against data loss. "We all feel more secure now," she says. "We don't worry about losing data and in [the insurance] business, that type of assurance means a lot."